Punch, Brothers, Punch
by Kelly123
Summary: "All I've ever asked for you to call me was 'brother' and yet you refused. And now you want to call me your King?" ONE-SHOT


_So...I'm not sure about this._

_I don't know when it is, or really where it is (though I threw in a little scenery just in case) or anything to place it really. Why? Well...I'm only halfway through the first book. Oops! But I'm a terrible spoiler-whore, and I've spent far too much time reading up online than I should. And the result is this, a random scene that popped in my head and simply wouldn't go away. It is very short._

_D: Not mine._

_Enjoy!_

**_"Punch, brothers! Punch with care!"  
_**

_**-Mark Twain**  
_

* * *

She shouldn't have come, he was sure of it.

In the dead of night she had appeared, uninvited and unannounced, silhouetted like an ill-boding shadow against the snow that fell and fell without an end in sight. At the moment his eyes fell upon the feminine shape moving towards him, familiar and yet utterly unknown, he felt his throat constrict with unease. She was taller than he had last seen her, dressed in homespun, coarse cloth more fitting of a servant girl than a Lord's daughter, but the matted furs around her shoulders did not conceal her from him anymore than the false name she gave his steward. He knew it, knew her before she ever opened her mouth.

And when she had, he wished it was not so.

The words she spoke were those of truth he had once longed to hear, and yet their utterance gave him little peace. Such matters should have meant nothing to him and his world now, and yet he found himself completely at their mercy.

"I never wanted this, any of it!"

She sneered at him, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a fashion that should have been foreign to a lady as mindful of her courtesies as she had been. But she was a bastard herself now, and bastards could sneer where ladies couldn't. "Do you already regard yourself so much more highly than the rest of us, Your Grace? I would scarcely say that any of us _wanted_ this, but seven save us, here we are."

"Do not call me 'your grace'." he seethed, gray eyes alight with a burn reminiscent of the little sister long vanished, "I have never wanted to be your King-

Scoffing, she interrupted. "Every girl longs to be a princess, and every boy wants to be a king, do not pretend you were any different."

"I did not!" Had she not known him at all? All those years, and she had been first to remind him that he was not like the others, not worthy of them, and now she wished to act as though they had grown up sharing hopes and dreams. "All I ever wanted was to have a family. All I've ever asked for you to call me was 'brother' and yet you refused. And now you want to call me your King?"

She did not answer immediately, but he saw her jaw tighten at the word 'family' as she brooded over his accusations. He knew he was her last link to the word, she who had never really considered him such. She would not be here if he was not her last option, seemingly, her only hope. "You are the true-"

"No." The word was almost a snarl. "I will have none of it, my place is on the Wall, my family are my brethren, and my vows are to the black."

"I know how you've honored your vows in the past." She countered, rearranging her face into a smirk that did not sit well with him. "If you would risk sullying your precious word for a wilding's cunt, then I would think you should do the same for the sake of your Kingdom."

Temper flaring at her crude words, he advanced upon her. "Do not speak of-you cannot know-"

"Ahh, no, but I do. I know much, too much some might say. You are the one who knows nothing." She sunk into a low curtsy, "Your Grace."

His fist clenched itself upon the pommel of his sword to keep from flying at her cheek. He had never struck a woman, but now he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood as he stared in disbelieving fury at the girl he found he knew no longer. Her hair was darker, but there were still hints of the shade he had known ghosting at its roots, time sure to restore it to its former glory if only she wished it so. Her eyes though, they were darker too, and he was certain not so easily fixed. They were flat, blank, mocking, with no trace of their former innocence. She knew too much, she had said, and her eyes assured him of such.

"How?" he asked, in a voice that sounded strangled even to his own ears.

"You forget my father. Lord Baelish was a-"

"That man was a vile, traitorous craven! He was not your father, Sansa, he was the one who betrayed our father into the hands of the Lannisters and-"

"_Our_ father?"

It was too much.

The shoulders beneath his black cloak slumped of their own accord, piled high with grief and shame and the overwhelming sense of loss that weighed on him constantly, now heavy to the point of breaking. Standing before the woman who had once been his lady half-sister, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch looked little more than the scared bastard boy he had been when last they had met.

But she was no longer his half-sister. Of that she was here to make certain.

"Eddard Stark was many things. The Lord of Winterfell, the Hand of the King, a traitor to some, and a father to others, but not to you...Jon."

"Why are you doing this?" he knew it sounded a plea, but he was to far gone to care anymore, "What have they done to you?"

She bristled at his inquiry, drawing herself up to her full height and breaking contact with his beseeching gaze. Staring into the night, she looked beyond the Wall with an intensity he had never seen in her before, her pretty face pinched with emotion she was determined not to betray. There was an answer hidden somewhere in the sharp lines and harsh edges she now wore, but it was sure to be one he did not care to hear. They stood in silence for a long moment, these surviving children of the North, with blood and bones forged by the winter's bitter cold. The lone sound of a wolf's cry broke through the pregnant stillness, and at its sound her carefully composed mask faltered.

"They took his head," she said quietly, still not meeting his eyes, "they have taken everything I have ever loved and they have crushed it with their bloody hands. I am not silly, stupid Sansa Stark any longer, and I know better than to think anything in this world could ever be like the songs she once so loved. I know pain now, and sorrow, and anger, and before I die or they kill me too I long to know vengeance. Still do you ask me why?"

Did he? He could not be sure of much anymore, except-

"They were my family too. Even if what you say is true, even if I am...he was still my blood, if not my father. I still loved him, as I did all of them...all of you."

She turned her face to his then, an unexpected spark so decidedly like Robb in her dulled blue eyes that it almost took his breath away. "Even my lady mother?" she said japingly, and his heart lurched at the sight with something akin to joy or regret or some combination of the both to the extent that he found a ghost of a smile playing at his chapped lips.

"You do know what you ask of me, my lady, don't you? To do as you say comes at a cost, and the price for deserting the Watch is death."

Her hands clutched at her skirts with the promise of his words, and she matched his grin with a toss of her head. "It shouldn't be anything new. You've tried once before, right?" her smile falters for a moment, "For Robb?"

He can't manage words at that, and he knows that she isn't the brother he lost or the sister he misses, but she is _alive_, and she is _family_, and despite his best intentions there is no stopping the fact that in his heart the decision has been made. The nod he gives her is curt, but still the sparkle in her eyes does not dim.

"All I ask is that you take what is rightfully yours, my Lord. I've heard that Targaryens aren't ones to fear death."

"Aye," he said, his own eyes narrowing as he looks down at her and then into the same point in the darkness where her gaze had been fixed, "and neither are Starks."

* * *

_Figure out what is going on here...and let me know, please!  
_


End file.
